Andy Buchsbaum

Vice President of Conservation Action

Great Lakes Regional Center - Ann Arbor, MI 734-887-7100

Andy is the Vice President for Conservation Action at the National Wildlife Federation and the interim Executive Director of the NWF Action Fund, the national political arm of NWF. He oversees the conservation work of NWF’s seven regional offices and the partnerships with affiliated conservation organizations in 49 states. Our conservation priorities include ensuring continued access to public lands, conserving iconic landscapes, restoring major watersheds (Gulf of Mexico, Great Lakes, Chesapeake Bay), protecting lakes and streams, and connecting kids with the outdoors. In his role in the Action Fund, he leads efforts to build power for conservation in key states and nationally.

Prior to heading up NWF’s Conservation Action nationally, Andy was the Regional Executive Director of NWF’s Great Lakes office and the interim Executive Director of the NWF Action Fund, the national political arm of NWF. In those roles, he co-chaired (and co-founded) the 115-organization Healing Our Waters Coalition. Under his leadership, NWF and Healing Our Waters have helped to win an unprecedented $1.6 billion in federal funding for Great Lakes restoration and new state and federal laws to protect Great Lakes water supplies. Andy won the Detroit Free Press Michigan Green Leader Award in 2014. A recovering attorney, he has authored and co-authored numerous studies, reports, and law review articles and testified on a wide range of Great Lakes issues before state, regional and national government bodies, including the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House, the International Joint Commission, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. For the past eighteen years, he has taught environmental law courses at the University of Michigan Law School. Prior to joining NWF in 1998, Andy was the senior attorney for the Midwest office of the National Environmental Law Center and the Program Director for the Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) in Michigan. He got his undergraduate degree at Harvard College and his law degrees at Boalt Hall (University of California, Berkeley) and Georgetown University Law Center.